Monday, 17 March 2014

ABERDEEN WON THE SCOTTISH LEAGUE CUP! A review

Along with the rest of our beloved city, we at FitbaThatba have waited for 19 years to celebrate Aberdeen winning a trophy. AND NOW WE HAVE OH YES WE HAVE

The Dandy Dons ended a near two decade trophy drought by pumping Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Celtic Park. It was absolutely ace. Apart from all of the football, which was beyond terrible

The sound of Rooney's penalty hitting the back of the net is the best thing I have ever heard, and that includes the new Bombay Bicycle Club album and the bit in the Ricky Gervais podcasts where he asks Karl what he'd say to a squid.

Parkhead was absolutely rammed. Well... except for that massive green bit you can see that they just didn't bother selling tickets for because of police orders. That is probably for the best though since we all know that Aberdeen v ICT is a real fiery affair - how anyone expected to get out alive is beyond me. The amount of rusty hooks and shotguns I saw left outside the ground was astounding.

For those that haven't been to Celtic Park before, to explain what the surrounding area is like is best put by saying that if you imagine the first level on Golden Axe except full of people who think they're Irish, that's it. The various creatures that adorn the front doors of pubs on the way seemed very friendly, and indeed several had 'sheep welcome' signs outside. One of my pals noted that the Celtic supporting inhabitants of the East End of Glasgow seemed to be very much behind the Dons for the game but several of the people drinking there seemed to also really like the IRA, so he wasn't really sure if that was a good thing. As I recall, I seem to remember the IRA largely being considered bad, so we decided that it was bad. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind Celtic fans that you are indeed a club in Scotland. Not Ireland.

Journey complete, we took our seats in Celtic Park in the Jock Stein stand and joined in some lovely songs

I was absolutely shit-faced by this part of the game, having consumed fairly large amounts of beer in a short period of time in the hours previous. As in to the point where I was actually TURNING DOWN BEER. In the kangaroo courts of Aberdeenshire withholding beer is actually one of the punishments for murder. The other punishment is double murder, but I haven't really decided what I mean by that yet. I think it might be that you have to murder yourself.

Having given the world our Cup Final song, which is available on iTunes now, I was well placed within the home support, because that's what it was, and the crowd went through the numbers, missing only one classic which conveniently is also available on iTunes now. Commas

ICT decided that the best way to win a game of football was to not play football and "parked the bus". Johnny Hayes heroically injured himself in the first few seconds of the match by trying to jump over someone upside down, and both teams humped the ball forwards. Suddenly it was half time. That's about all I can really remember from that half. Instead of in depth analysis, here is a painting that someone did

by Colin Brown

It may look like the inside of the mind of a serial killer and maybe it is because I don't know Colin Brown but he kindly sent us this image to do something with. Perhaps this is the image Derek McInnes used to inspire his players for the second half, but that wouldn't explain why the second half was fairly poor cos this painting is ace. When I say the half was poor I mean a bunch of guys tried to header a ball farther than the last guy had for most of it.

Some bellend behind me started moaning that Aberdeen weren't winning yet and needed to 'get the ball forward', asserting that the best course of action was to 'get it in the box' - almost everything that is wrong with Scottish football personified in one man, whom I assume was wearing a bucket hat. I can never understand folk like that - I enjoy watching Aberdeen pass the ball about "for no reason" rather than just fucking whacking it towards some boy upfront - it's almost like they're playing real football as opposed to the nonsense I used to have to watch as a 14 year old. Maybe that's why we haven't won any trophies..... no. No, Spain are definitely playing the game wrong. We should teach them the style of our people.

Speaking of trophies, there was one up for grabs in this game and that was why every time Calley got near to Jamie Langfield's goal I was rather unsettled. Where better for Clangers to perform his next magic trick than the biggest game in the club's recent history? In the end he didn't make any fatal errors, and ICT had about 0 shots all game, apart from one where Richy Foran claims he was fouled. And he wasn't.

So anyway, some other stuff happened, McGinn missed a sitter and extra time would, to the neutral, have seemed like the most boring 30 minutes of football of all time, but to me was like the last 10 minutes in any episode of 24 when suddenly it turns out that the head of CTU was sleeping with the bad guy but the bad guy could turn into a wolf and could SEE THROUGH TIME and meanwhile Jack Bauer is punching a vaguely Iranian looking person in an abandoned warehouse while a clealry Russian person from a made up place picks up the phone and says 'get me the president' but on the end of the PHONE ISN'T THE PRESIDENT IT'S PETER PAWLETT BABY! PETER PAWLETT OOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The full time whistle goes and suddenly I realise that I want to die or alternatively not watch the penalties. Either way I'm definitely going to poop myself at some point and then it gets better because the penalties are at the Calley end.

Also, I know having read Soccernomics that the team who takes penalties first in a shoot out wins 60% of the time, so I was really really happy when the highland huns also won the coin toss. NAAAAT!

Barry Robson took a three mile run up and slammed the ball in the bottom right corner of the goal and things looked good. Then some other chap from Inverness hoofed his shot into outer space and Nicky Low powered home, also bottom right. Things looked even better. Calley scored, Aberdeen scored (Vernon's penalty was an absolute peach by the way), Calley scored and it was 3-2 .

Rooney stepped up having to only put the ball past a keeper from 12 yards to win the cup.

And then we went fucking mental. I can barely talk right now because my throat hurts from screaming so much, and the entire stadium was jumping everywhere. People were bouncing around, hugging each other, several had tears in their eyes - I've never seen a football support like it.

The players chased and mobbed Rooney and all of a sudden we'd won a trophy. Below is a photo I've stolen from somewhere of a sight I never thought I'd see, I'm sure they won't mind

If there's ever like a weird experiment where a man has to impregnate another man to save the world, then I am sprinting to either Russel Anderson or Derek McInnes' house to take part. That might be my excuse anyway, I haven't really planned it fully yet. Whatever happens, I'm definitely trying to shag one of them.

So as you can probably tell I was quite happy at this point. It might seem a bit stupid getting rather carried away and writing a giant article on a largely Mickey Mouse trophy, but the people who think that are the ones who don't really understand football. The kind of fan who turns up expecting to win, not hoping. The kind of fan who moans on Twitter that their team hasn't signed anyone that costs over £20million yet. The kind of fan who doesn't understand the genuine pain of what it feels like to expect to lose most weeks, who will never know what it's like to support a club so far removed from the billion pound signing on fees and Champions League money football that it might as well be a different sport. The kind of fans who are basically just sheep, but not these sheep, because these SHEEP ARE ON FIRE!

What I'm trying to say is get that up you, you glory hunting huns. A special mention should go to my friend @adammorrice who lost a bet and had to be a 'full kit wanker' for the day. Extra special credit goes to him wearing shinpads. Follow him on Twitter if you like

I'd sobered up by this point and someone who wasn't me drove up to Aberdeen so we could indulge ourselves in some skite action. I got very drunk for a second time to celebrate winning the Scottish League Cup and danced about like a fanny with most of the returning support in the streets of Aberdeen. What a fucking night.

The trophy is being driven up the A90 as I type this out, according to Jamie Langfield